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Month: March 2014

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This is a solid major label debut. YG puts in some good work with his rhymes while not being the most gifted rapper. He treads familiar ground with content but keeps it on a more personal level than some others in the genre have been known to do.

The album comes across as a concept album with no real storyline as it is centred on YG’s own life. Track titles that would have words beginning with C are replaced with a B to show his ties to the Bloods, and not Crips, making a personal connection to the music. It is all built upon his street status and about how it blended in with other aspects of his life up to this point.

That being said, a large portion of the music isn’t overly personal. YG connects them to his own experiances, but the tracks themselves are well trodden ground. YG puts them across as different as his mentor DJ Mustard has created this sub-genre within Hip-Hop that is new to the culture. That production with YG’s style helps to push each track toward greater heights, regardless of content.

The production itself, of course, is amazing. DJ Mustard has put himself among the top producers and brings his A-Game to this effort. Each track is crafted to capture the atmosphere that the lyrics create and it is all done with great head nodding goodness.

The diversity of the tracks is also done very well. There are tracks designed for the clubs, for a Top 40 breakthrough and for pretty much everything else. There is even a track apologising to his mother for things he did growing up. This all helps build up the concept album feel and the feeling of an album that flows very easily.

The features are also fantastic. Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock, the street portion of the Black Hippy group, hold down the track “I Just Wanna Party” with great street verses. Drake gives a superbly on point verse on “Who Do You Love?” and who hasn’t heard Jeezy and Rich Homie Quan on “My Nigga”? All add to the album to help craft this debut effort.

Overall, while this is not an album that will be as celebrated as some (or as put down as others), this is a good effort from YG and as he grows in lyrical ability his efforts are only going to get better. This is a more than average album, while not quite reaching the heights of a great album.

Oxymoron definitely has a street feel. The beat selection is great for Schoolboy Q’s sound and definitely has a grittier feel than the majority of radio stations would like, while the subject matter is far from made for Radio. The singles are ill-fitting to the album flow and it feels like the album loses momentum when you hit one of them. The singles are still great tracks but they don’t fit properly with the rest of the album.

It is a solid album for content although not ground-breaking, gang banging, drugs and sex are heavily featured. Not a lot that is overly sensitive but from listening to the whole thing you start to realise maybe this isn’t Schoolboy Q’s favourite area of music. Most if not all the tracks are head nodders and will keep you interested if you listen to the whole thing in one sitting. At 17 tracks, this is quite impressive as some albums tend to become repetitive and dull as you listen, but some well-placed features and interesting use of sounds keep the whole thing sounding new, even if it is a well-trodden path of subject matter.

Schoolboy Q seems to start out-of-place on a lot of tracks, until you let it run and find that his vocals fit in perfectly with the beat he has selected. He paints a vivid picture of sexual acts as well as the great deal he smokes up. On top of that, he has a distinctive voice that makes him standout on these tracks and even others that he is featured on, for example see his features on Game’s OKE mixtape.

Overall, Oxymoron is a solid album for Schoolboy Q to put out, but it will be interesting to see where he will go on because more established artists than him have tried to keep going with the gangbanging angle and had their sales fall drastically, so unless he can make it his own, he may need to find a new way to tackle the music industry.

These shoes are great. They move with the foot and have great cushioning ability. They are very supportive of the foot to stop chaffing while playing and are also very eye catching, mostly due to the new flyknit technology which is one of the distinguishing features of the shoe, as well as the super high cut of the collar. It’s lightweight, durable and is a fantastic edition to Nike.

The sole is very thin overall but this only leads to a more aggressive state of play as you can feel the court more under your feet. This combined with the pressure mapped footprint on the outsole leads to no slippage on court. The extra grip on the inside also helps with the grip during play, but can make taking the shoe off, or putting it on, harder as you have to basically unlace the whole top of the shoe to get your foot in or out.

The amount of technology and thought that has gone into the shoe has led to the best basketball shoe since Jordan went out in the first Air Jordan 1. The lunarlon sole is one of the aspects which lead to great cushioning and the flyknit and flywire technology help with the support and movement of the foot. Even the heel clip made of carbon fibre helps to support the shoe as you change direction and make quick cuts.

Overall the Kobe 9 Elite is as close to a perfect basketball shoe as Nike have gotten and I wish Kobe luck in his recovery from a gruelling injury and luck for when he returns to the court in his magnificent shoe.